Picture this — a marketplace where loneliness is what you trade, and what you buy are nothing more than well-edited lies.

That’s Tinder.

It's a place where people, hopeful and searching, swipe endlessly, judging potential matches by their glossiest photos.

I gave Tinder a real shot for two months. Every day, I went through 100-500 profiles, totaling up to about 25,000 in all. And how many actual dates did this get me? Zero.

Now compare that to just walking up to people. I tried it 20 times in different spots around town—real places, not digital ones. That got me several numbers and some great conversations. Face-to-face, even a rejection is part of a dance that feels alive.

Tinder profits off loneliness. It hooks you with the idea of endless possibilities but really, it's built to keep you looking and never finding. The more you swipe, the more they show you ads or push you to pay for features that don’t change a thing.

Happy and in love?

Tinder loses.

So, it keeps you single.

When you run out of local options, it doesn’t stop. Instead, it serves up potential matches from far away, keeping the illusion alive. It’s a standard conflict of interest.

Tinder thrives when our social skills die. It's turning meeting new people into a strange, unnatural game that’s all about how well you can play the dating app, not how well you connect with people.

Let's face it — Tinder might just be the worst thing to ever hit the dating scene. It plays on our deepest fears and gradually erodes men’s confidence and women's sense of self-worth. It has turned dating into a battleground of nerves, where men are scared to approach women, and women flee from those who do. The essence of dating has shifted from experiencing connections to chasing instant gratification and dopamine hits.

This needs to change. We must return to building relationships directly, face-to-face, not through a costly and predatory middleman. Making a profit from loneliness and exploiting hope should be universally condemned.

We must restore integrity to dating — Tinder's approach is not just flawed; it's destructive.